Items Tagged with 'sunflower'

Russian military advances are threatening fields in southern and eastern Ukraine that are some of the most fertile in the country and the country's primary growing regions for winter wheat, according to market analysts and researchers.

The war rages on, but Ukraine is already looking ahead to the task of rebuilding the country, and a new estimate from the Kyiv School of Economics indicates the agriculture sector has already suffered $27.6 billion in damages.

Ukraine’s farmers are preparing to begin this year’s problematic summer harvest on the 75% of fields not under Russian occupation, but producers, analysts and political leaders are preoccupied with the broader question of where the grain will be stored as efforts falter to reopen exports through Black Sea ports.

Ukrainian farmers are short on diesel, fertilizer and manpower. They’ve been bombed, occupied, had their fields mined and silos and tractors destroyed by the Russian military. They've even had their grain robbed and sold overseas while they themselves are struggling to export because of a Russian blockade at ports, sources tell Agri-Pulse.

Kees Huizinga has been farming near Kyiv, Ukraine, for 20 years and he’s determined to continue this year even as Russian bombs fall nearby, diesel fuel and other inputs are increasingly sparse and he sees little hope of being able to sell his crops.